No Beast Feast: a Vegan Holiday Dinner

Do you get a little sad when "The Grinch carves the Roast Beast"?

Do you cringe when when they chop off the head of the "Chinese Turkey" at the end of "A Christmas Story"?

Do you think Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving dinner of popcorn and toast sounds pretty good?

If so, I think you will enjoy the No Beast Feast:

Tofurkey with Gravy
Apple Cranberry Sauce
Mashed Medley
Christmas Coleslaw

And for Dessert:
Pumpkin Apple Bread Pudding.

So clean out the root cellar, and get cooking!

Okay, first thing is to make some soy butter:

You'll need:
1/2 C Soy Milk
1C vegetable oil
2tsp Lemon Juice
And a blender.

Put the soy milk in the blender, and turn it on. Pour the oil in slowly. When it's thick, add the lemon juice.

Done!
(it's sort of a cross between sourcream and butter. We use it in two recipes for the feast.)

You don't normally think of coleslaw when you think of x-mas dinner, but here's why I made it.
- I had some cabbage to use up, and I don't like cooked cabbage that much
- I like salad with dinner, but good lettuce is hard to find in the winter.
- It's red and green, very x-masy.

The crisp, cold, and tangy coleslaw goes well with this dinner.

You'll need.
Some cabbage. (Say 1/2 a head red and 1 small head green)
1/2 C Cider vinegar, (or red wine vinegar)
1/2 of the soy butter (see step 1)
2 tsp sugar
1- 2T Spicy Mustard
Kohlrabi or celeric if you have it
salt and pepper.

Shred the cabbage, put it in a big bowl. Julienne the Kohlrabi and/or celeric, and add it to the cabbage.
Add the vinegar, soy butter, sugar, mustard, and salt and pepper.
toss it all up, cover it and put it in the fridge for a few hours.

I don't know if regular canned cranberry sauce has geletin in it, or what, but something is weird about it. Here is a very yummy homemade version.

you need:
3 apples, cored, peeled and cubed
1 bag of cranberries.
1/2 C sugar
water

Put the apples in a sauce pan, with a splash of water. Cook until they can be mashed. Mash them in the pot, then add the cranberries, sugar, and water if needed. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until all the berries "pop". Mash it up a little with the masher, and let it sit. It gets a little thicker as it cools.
Put it in the fridge until dinner.

Tofurkey is soooooo good, and really easy to make. The hardest part is finding it. You can go to http://www.tofurky.com/purchasing_US.asp to find out where to get one.
And no, it doesn't taste like turkey, it doesn't look like turkey. It tastes like baked tofu and wild rice. It's good!!!

You need:
A Tofurkey (thawed)
1 Can Pineapple chunks, in juice
2T soy sauce
2T Maple syrup
1 Onion
Casserole dish with lid.

Get the plastic wrapper off of the tofurkey, and put it in the dish. Add some chunks of pineapple, and chunks of onion.
Mix together the soy sauce, syrup, and about T of the pineapple juice. Pour half of this baste onto the tofurkey. Cover and cook in the over for 1 hour, 15 minutes.
Remove from oven, remove the lid, add the rest of the baste, and put it back in the oven, uncovered for 10-15 minutes.

Sometimes Tofurkey comes with gravy. Just heat up the gravy in the microwave. If it doesn't come with gravy, I think the baste from the pot is enough.

Move over mashed potatoes, here comes Mashed Medley.
You need:

Potatoes
Carrots
Rutabagas
Turnips
Celeric
Kholrabi
Soy Butter

If you don't have all these crazy root vegetables, that's fine. It's good with just potatoes, but these veggies are really good and under used. I suggest you try them if you can find them.

Wash all of the veggies. Peel them. (I like to keep the peels on the potatoes.) Cut them. (Make the rutabagas real small, the potatoes and carrots pretty big.)
Put them in a steam pot, and steam for 30 mins, or until tender.

Once cooked, put them in a bowl, add half of the soy butter (see step 1) and mash it all up. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Extra bonus points: roast some or all of the veggies on a cookie sheet in the oven. They have a little more flavor than steamed, but they take longer.

Turnip Tip: If your turnip are a little old, or big, blanche them in boiling water for 5 minutes to make them less bitter.

This is bread pudding, cooked and served in a pumpkin shell. If you don't have a pumpkin, just cook it in a casserole dish.

you need:

A sugar pumpkin.
3 or 4 slices of bread
2 apples
1/2 c raisins
1T Maple syrup
1/2 C sugar
egg substitute for 3 eggs.
2 C soymilk.
1tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cut the top off of the pumpkin.Scoop out the guts. Poke a bunch of holes inside the pumpkin with a fork. Put the maple syrup in the pumpkin, and roll it around to coat the inside. Put the pumpkin in a pan and put in the oven for 20 minutes at 350F.

Tear the bread up into small chunks. Peel, core, and chop the apples. Put apple, bread, and raisins into a bowl.
In a pot, heat up the milk. Add sugar and stir.
Pour hot milk over bread mixture and let sit for a few minutes.

Prepare egg subsititue for 3 eggs. Add cinnamon and salt. Stir, then add to bread/milk mixture.

When pumpkin is done, spoon mixture into pumpkin. If it doesn't all fit, put the rest into a casserole dish.

Put it in the over for about an hour.

Slice it like a cake.

Yum Yum Yum

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy your holiday dinner.
Goes well with wine and beer.

Happy Holidays!!!!!!!

"NO DOGS WERE HARMED DURING THE MAKING OF THIS INSTRUCTABLE. THE CAT GOT SICK AND SOMEBODY SHOT A DUCK BUT THAT'S ABOUT IT."

If you get this reference...you rule!